Take a look at this. It will explain how you can make a successful business by doing the things you love (plumbing or heating engineering), whilst still making sure everything else is taken care of.

Are you:

A qualified or experienced woman plumber/heating engineer thinking about leaving your job and shifting your lifestyle to something that suits you better?

Sometimes lacking confidence in your technical ability (even when you’ve repeatedly done well)

Are you worried you won’t make enough reliable income working for yourself?

Worried about the amount of admin, paperwork and marketing you’ll need to do to be a success?

Concerned you won’t know how to proceed inventing everything on your own

Wondering how you’ll cope without the backup of a team?

Do you like being your own boss but not being isolated?

Would you love to work in a way that gives you greater flexibility but you’re concerned about the risks, and losing the regular income of your job?

Do you want or need more independence?

Are you keen to run your own business (whilst avoiding the potential pitfalls of a start-up operation).

Are you happy to work hard to achieve your goals?

If so the Stopcocks Business Incubator (franchise) offers a great route to your success.

Do you know the franchise sector is an important part of the UK economy?

There are a few things, that we’d like to share, to guide you through this process!

Franchising can be a confusing issue, with people talking about ‘rail franchises’ and ‘film franchises’ and then there’s a group of companies who call themselves franchises who aren’t really (they’re most likely to offer a licence and some may be multi-level marketing) and then there’s the real thing – franchises who offer franchisees the opportunity to work for themselves following a well proven business model and offering various levels of support.

The British Franchise Association (bfa). The bfa identify a franchise as a business with a proven ethical model that can be replicated. Although we’re not members of the bfa, Stopcocks business methods and model meet their strict ethical criteria

We’ve already proven our business model works by running an extensive pilot, tweaking it over several years so that we know our model really works. We launched as a franchise in 2017 and are now offering Business Incubator franchises to the right women plumbers and heating engineers.

Franchising is undoubtedly a great way to own your own business with the continued support of your franchisor and your peers. Buying into a proven brand operating a proven business model means you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Having others working on your behalf to develop the customer offering and driving best practice in your chosen industry is invaluable. At Stopcocks we provide considerably more than this, with admin and office support, technical mentoring and a host of other services.

Franchising may not be for everyone. To find great, impartial, advice on becoming a franchisee you might like to visit one, or all, of the following websites…

British Franchise Association (bfa) https://www.thebfa.org/

Lloyds Bank http://www.lloydsbank.com/business/industry-focus/franchising/franchisees.asp

HSBC http://www.business.hsbc.uk/en-gb/hsbc-franchising

RBS http://www.business.rbs.co.uk/business/start-ups/business-guidance/starting-a-business/becoming-a-franchise.html

NatWest Bank http://www.business.natwest.com/business/start-ups/business-guidance/starting-a-business/becoming-a-franchise.html

Encouraging Women Into Franchising (EWIF) http://www.ewif.org/

The NatWest/bfa survey 2013 reports the following…

There are 930 franchise systems in operation in the UK.  The total number of people employed in franchising in the UK is 561,000.

The overall contribution of franchising to the UK economy is £13.7 billion

The survey highlighted that Franchisees saw the following benefits in being a franchisee:

• Quality Expectations
• Having a standardised product or service
• Appearing to have a larger business
• Having a sustainable business
• Competitive advantage
• Limited financial liabilities
• Franchisor Support
• Being part of a bigger brand